The use of online video is at an all-time high and growing exponentially. According to Kissmetrics, a provider of Web analytics tools, online viewers are anywhere from 64 to 85 percent more likely to buy after watching a product video.
“People vastly prefer watching over reading,” states a Kissmetrics blog post (blog.kissmetrics.com).
Car parts retailer Advance Auto Parts has found that including instructional and how-to videos both on its site and Facebook has led to some surprising findings. Visitors who watch video stay on the site twice as long and visit twice as many pages versus those who don’t see video. And, sharing those how-to tutorials on Facebook further increases the retailer’s reach.
Web video spending will nearly double from 7.9 percent of all advertising in 2012 to 15 percent in 2016, according to eMarketer Inc.
Web videos can be used to demonstrate the unique features of a product or how to assemble, service or replace parts on a product, which can increase customer satisfaction and decrease your own company’s spending on customer service for equipment that may still be under warranty.
Forbes recently reported that YouTube parent Google introduced resources this year to help small businesses create and promote Web videos. Just as with Google’s search advertising, Google AdWords for Video lets small businesses pay only when users watch their videos. Companies can promote their videos by keywords to appear in YouTube search results, or display their video ads on pages with interesting content.
YouTube also offers free analytical tools that enable small businesses to find out how viewers are engaging with their brands. Businesses can track how many viewers watched an entire video, or even if they visited the company’s website afterward.
